City board members met with City Administrator Phillip Patterson and Mayor John Turner in the Siloam Springs Public Library on May 14 for a workshop to outline potential goals for the city to take action on in 2021 and 2022.
Goal-setting workshops take place every two years, according to Patterson. The workshops are designed to address issues the directors would like to see the city accomplish during the next two years. Patterson would like to have the goals, and their analysis, time lines and measurements drafted and formally adopted by the board in June or July so that any goal to be completed in 2021 can be included in that year's budget, he said.
Every two years city board members meet with the city administrator and go through 58 goals submitted by the city directors. During this year’s workshop, board selected 12 of the 58 goals they would like the city to work on. The 12 goals are:
• Annexation
• Economic development
• Community events/art culture
• Sager Creek improvements
• Better recycling
• Housing
• Street projects
• Lake Francis Drive improvements
• Study of city fees
• Development code renewal
• Creation of a separate Parks Department
• Improving and expanding communications with citizens.
"That's why we're doing this a little earlier than what we've done in the past," Patterson said.
Each of the 58 goals were discussed by the directors and then if it was something that directors wanted the city to work on, an informal vote was taken and the goal was placed on a list. This year, the board selected 12 goals during the workshop to focus on.
The Herald-Leader will present one or two goals discussed and chosen by the board as part of a series.
Annexation
Annexation was the first goal addressed during the workshop. The city is looking to annex rural properties that are on city water, Patterson said. The principal method the city uses is to have rural residents sign a pre-annexation document when they sign up for city water, Patterson said.
One of the problems the city runs into is that city code requires any property annexed in to be on city electric. Most of the residents annexed in have electricity through Carroll Electric Company, Patterson said.
This creates a problem because the city has to buy out the new resident's contract through Carroll Electric Company at three and a half times the annual revenue of the contract, in addition to the depreciation of the customer's future billing, plus the cost of rerouting the service, Patterson said.
"I've got a couple of houses we are looking at annexing that are served by Carroll today and those numbers, two houses, the last time I heard were $12,000 to $13,000," he said.
Director Carol Smiley asked about talking to the local state representative. Patterson said that was an option but cautioned that the electric companies are also talking to those representatives.
"No offense to anyone, their lobbying might be better," Patterson said.
Director Brad Burns said he thought the city was doing a great job of getting little pieces and encouraged the city to continue.
Director Bob Coleman was looking at farmland owned by older people who may want to annex in before the land is turned into a subdivision, and the city would have to write a very large check to Carroll Electric to transfer those new residents' electric service over to city electric.
Smiley said annexing areas that are not developed would benefit the city.
Patterson said there is some case law that says cities can't go out and annex a bunch of farmland, but there are also instances where that was done and no one objected.
Patterson said an option could also be to amend the city code so residents who are annexed in can stay with Carroll Electric. The electric company would then be charged a five percent franchise fee for those customers who were annexed in, he said.
Problems would arise if one electric provider were to raise their rates and the other did not, that would lead to some people paying more for electric through Carroll Electric than with city electric.
"I would submit to you, long term, (that if) Carroll Electric raises their rates and those people want to be on city electric at a later date, you just kicked the cost down the road," Patterson said.
After discussing this goal, the board conducted an informal vote and this goal was placed on the list to move forward toward formal adoption.
General News on 05/27/2020